Coles rejects milk price protest claims

Supermarket company Coles says its discount milk prices are not to blame for cuts to farm gate prices for dairy farmers.

A south-west Victorian dairy farmers' group, Farmer Power, along with south-east South Australian farmers, protested outside Warrnambool's major supermarkets earlier this month.

It is partly blaming the sale of milk at Coles and Woolworths of $1 a litre for lower dairy prices at the farm gate.

However, Jim Cooper of Coles says farmers are more influenced by the global market and only 8 per cent of fresh milk produced in Victoria is sold in the state.

"Fresh drinking milk in sales in Victoria represent less than 8 per cent of the state's total production, so it's really not what might be happening to the price of milk on the supermarket shelf that might be driving farm gate price concerns for dairy farmers in Victoria, which ... [is] really the global market," he said.

"We understand that dairy farmers might see the milk on the shelf as the most visible sort of aspect of their business but the reality is that's not what drives the farm gate price that they're receiving."

Source: ABC News, 29 January 2013